Killing Time
In some cultures, time is measured by actions; the distance between two towns is two cooking pots of rice. In the contemporary life we live, actions are measured by time.
Believe me, that’s not me saying that time is not important; but I’m asking myself and you to reflect on it. Some days the hours pass by slowly. Other days hours move quicker than seconds.
In those places where they have little use of clocks, or none at all, they can’t use the language we nowadays use to describe time with.
“[The language to] speak of time as though it were something actual, which passes, can be wasted, can be saved.” And so they didn’t have to fight against that abstract thing called time. They only wanted to reference the activities themselves. that life used to be measured by living, not by units of time.
Time transformed into something that can be bought, and so we started the language of “spending time, wasting time, killing time, saving time, losing time, racing against time,” and we spend our whole life in this fight, rather than just “passing time.”
I’ve been struggling with the idea of killing time, scheduling every hour of my day to do something. As if time has to be spent really well so it doesn’t get wasted. Spending even moments in quiet felt like wasting time.
In the past, people thought of reading books as distractions. Nowadays we think about reading as a means to slow down. In Islam we are taught that reflection is one of the most effective ways to understand yourself and the world around you. Sitting still, without input or output.
Time is mercurial; it’s not fixed. It varies. Yet we base all our lives on it.